British Street Food Awards 2012

Some people love American football for what goes on in the stadium. Not me. I love what’s happening outside – in the parking lot. That’s where you find the buffet served from the tailgate of the cars and trucks of sports fans. It’s all about the foods that you eat with one hand (because the other hand always has a beer in it). As we approach Super Bowl weekend, I’ve got one thing to say. ‘Forget the game, people – raise your big sponge hands in the air for the tailgate’.

Legend has it that the inaugural tailgate happened in 1869, at the college football game between Rutgers and Princeton. Fans travelled to the game by carriage, and then cooked up a pre-game meal at the ‘tail-end’ of the horse. A Health and Safety nightmare. (more…)

The genesis of Pitt Cue Co. is a fireside story of foodie folklore. From a friend’s kitchen in Vauxhall, ferrying tranches of meat to the Southbank in a clapped-out car, to a T-bona fide restaurant in one of London’s coolest postcodes. Adam Layton of Noshable tells the tale, and Paul Winch-Furness takes the pictures.

Pitt Cue Co. chef and co-owner Tom Adams is a very modest man. But he doesn’t have much cause to be. He’s just opened his first restaurant, hot off the back of a victorious spell on the Southbank, where his own take on American-style barbecue classics (more…)

Sanjay Kumar is the chef behind www.sanjayskitchen.co.uk. He’s now settled in Cornwall, working at the Amethyst in Truro, but he recently went home to Kolkata “to breathe in the cosmic city air”. It was his first trip home in eight years. “I just wanted to soak in the smells and sights of the road side food stalls that roar into life as dusk falls….”

In Kolkata, the city that never sleeps, a lot of the economy still exists on barter. When I approached the enterprising street food seller, and convinced him to share his secret recipe for a tummy tickling Egg Roll, I (more…)

It’s finally happened. France has its first mobiler. Le Camion Qui Fume – literally, “the smoking truck” — hit the streets at the end of last year, and its burger has been declared “incroyable” by the elegant citizens of Paris. Californian expat Kristin Frederick, a former chef at Spago in LA, had the right idea with her meat menu. “Even the French were waiting for a real American burger,” she said. Frederick might be American, but Le Camion Qui Fume owes a definite debt of gratitude to the Meatwagon — and the stars of the British Street Food Revolution. It says as much here. I think.

It’s the latest victory in the ongoing democratisation of French food. (more…)

Faith Popcorn wants to know everything about you – and I mean e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g. From the vermouth in your martini to the groceries in your refrigerator. The world’s leading trend forecaster works from a town house in New York, ‘brailling the culture’. And there’s an awful lot of culture to braille in New York. “I remember driving through Harlem” says Popcorn. “This guy was wearing pants, and – I swear to God – they were the biggest pants I’ve ever seen. They were like a skirt. I stopped and asked if he’d made them himself. By sewing two pairs of pants together. I just had to know. If I understand people then I can really understand the future.” (more…)

This Friday, London’s street food sellers take on a challenge of Biblical proportions. They are feeding the 5,000 — in Trafalgar Square. And they’re hoping Nigella will lend the event her support. The domestic goddess did the catering for her own wedding, but when she left for honeymoon, she couldn’t help herself. She took leftovers. There she was, a rich wife with a rich husband, but she took on a chiller bag of scraps as hand luggage. Waste not want not.

We can see it in her television series. At the close of a show, after the credits have rolled, we see Nigella sneaking down to the fridge to wolf down the leftovers. It’s not just put on for the cameras. “To tell the truth,” she says, “I’m happy to eat them standing, leaning on the still-open refrigerator door, for my finger-picked breakfast. But I also love the culinary fiddling to which they can lend themselves with great satisfaction.” (more…)

Remember the spork? I never got to grips with its spoon/fork interface. And now I’ve come across something just as useless – let’s call it the fopstick. The fork/chopstick was sheer bloody craziness. But maybe I should have expected it – after all, I was eating at the Crazy Bear, the Thai restaurant chain. The idea of ‘East meets West’ cutlery was a good one, but a bugger if you happened to be hungry.

I ordered two steamed king scallops (£3.50 each) on a salad of coriander, spring onion and crispy garlic. When the scallops arrived, the fopstick became an issue. Not just its shape – its size. It was big. I felt like a character in a nursery rhyme – when was the giant due back? And it looked even bigger because the table was so small, with a lamp slap-bang in the middle. I couldn’t even reach my gai lan (£4). (more…)

The drunker I sit here, the longer I get. I blame the Armagnac. Like it’s written in the Bible:
“And God said, ‘Let there be Armagnac’.
And He saw that it was good.
Then God said, ‘Let there be light!’
And then He said, ‘Whoa — too much light!

I do like that Armagnac’s robust, assertive character doesn’t mix easily in the fruit-and-vegetable world of cocktails. I do like that it has a distinct air of the old-fashioned. And I do like that it’s linked, atavistically, to a decent cigar. But when I wake up tomorrow, it will – of course – be a different story. (more…)

In the new series of the Apprentice, the candidates will try their hand at street food. I interviewed Lord Sugar, back when he was plain old Sir Alan. And I loved every minute of it. Almost……..

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I love chilli. Love it. I just wish I knew how to spell it. My favourite recipe is for a Layover Chili — note the use of a single ‘l’. Please don’t write letters. When Yianni from Meat Wagon agreed to give me the wonderful recipe to feature in Street Food Revolution, I was delighted. And it was Yianni who pointed out that ‘chili’ is the American spelling. Chili has always had a special place in Yianni’s heart – it was the first savoury dish he cooked from start to finish as a child. (more…)

The news that Birmingham is Britain’s foodie capital (see our Facebook Fanpage) took me by surprise. Birmingham was always somewhere you drove through. Or – thanks to Spaghetti Junction – round. Birmingham was like Calais. Never somewhere you chose to stay. But now the council want to change that. They want Birmingham to become a destination – a boulevarding city with fine pastries. So they have pulled down the Bull Ring, filled in the subways down Corporation Street, and begun to regenerate their city centre. Just as everyone else was regenerating their out-of-town. The Rough Guide even listed Birmingham as one of the world’s most desirable places to live – 60th in fact, ahead of Rome, Milan, Barcelona and Hong Kong. And no-one is quite sure why. Cool Britannia was difficult enough to swallow. But Cool Birmingham?

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Yes, the Bible has a lot to say about life and death. But it also has a lot to say about bread. There’s transubstantiation – and the episode with the loaves and the fishes. Scholars of bread are still debating the time when Jesus changes Simon’s name to Pitta. And “You ask for a miraculous sign, but Naan will be given”. But one thing is certain – when God establishes his kingdom on earth, bread will play a big roll.

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Andy Bates was there at the very beginning of the Street Food Revolution. The launch was of the British Street Food Awards was held on Whitecross Street, the London market where Andy sold his custard tarts and black pudding scotch eggs, and I remember him sending Marco Pierre White and Antony Worrall Thompson home with enough samples to feed an army. But he has that special ‘something’. And a knack with pastry. Which explains why he still holds the Best Pie title at the British Street Food Awards, and he’s now a tv star on the Food Network. It’s well deserved.

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No-one walks in Los Angeles – apart from the hookers. It’s a city of cars, which is why I’ve been sitting in traffic for an hour. At least Sunset Boulevard has got curves, unlike the other east-to-west arteries which cross LA. And the curves throw out ever-changing views across California’s wide-open spaces. In America’s sunshine state, they say you can surf, ski, and see the sun set over the desert – all on a single tank of petrol. I want to see if they’re right. If I can ever get past the junction with La Brea.

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Eat Street, the Food Network’s street food series, wanted a BSFA perspective on the capital’s best food trucks when they came to London last week. And I was only to happy to oblige. But they made the mistake of starting their odyssey with Angus and his Kolkata Street Food Experience. The out-of-towners had never seen anything like our Angus, who has his own unique way of dealing with admin and paperwork. (more…)

The British Street Food Awards, set up to recognise the best of the mobilers serving food on our streets, attracted more than 2000 entries this year. And — after much deliberation — the results are in. It’s great news for a beach shack from Wales, a retro ice cream truck from Lancashire and a vegetarian van from London. And it’s great news for Britain. The Street Food Revolution has finally arrived……..

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I’m cooking on the Farmhouse Stage with Tom Kerridge and Nuno Mendes this weekend at the British Street Food Awards. It reminded me of my treatise on the psychology of great chefs……..

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Bad news. The lovely Fay Ripley (actress and author of the brilliant Fay’s Family Food) is going to drive to Harvest At Jimmy’s. I was very excited when she agreed to come and join the judges at the British Street Food Awards on Sunday — she’s a great cook. But driving? All the way from London? I’ve tried emailing her train timetables. I’ve even looked into helicopter landing pads. But she won’t have it. She’s driving. Despite The Accident…….

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Food trends come and go. Take nouvelle cuisine, for instance. And edible flowers. Or the ‘spork’, a spoon/fork combination, which went the same way as the ‘spife’ and the ‘knork’. The Good Cook, a new six-part series for the BBC, isn’t interested the latest fads in food. It’s about honest-to-goodness recipes, from an honest-to-goodness cook — Simon Hopkinson. It just so happens that it’s also the most eagerly-awaited food series in years.

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It’s a shame, but my abiding of San Francisco is a three-line menu entry. Those lines still remind me of what can go wrong in high-end restaurants – which is why I wrote them down. Word for word. Under the subheading Mains, the entry read, simply, “Rosemary Basted Loin of Venison, Maple Glazed Endive, Vanilla Spiced Sweet Potato Purée, Pickled Cranberries and Chocolate Venison Jus” – it remains the most ridiculous, baroque menu entry I’ve ever read. But, thankfully, times change…..

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DUBAI EDITION OF ESQUIRE Dubai is the land where gold Bentleys don’t look out of place. Where you’ll see thousands of palm trees, imported from the desert, and The World – a group of 200 man-made islands laid out to resemble a map of the earth. The place has no history — and no heritage. What it offers is fantasy. And an underwater hotel. So when I picked up this food feature from the Dubai edition of Esquire magazine, I was amazed to see where they’re recommending well-heeled Dubai natives eat when they come to London. Heston at Dinner? I get it. Opulent, and lavish, and the size of the bill isn’t going to be a problem. But Broadway Market? And then down to Peckham to see Yianni? Everyone’s getting in on the British Street Food action. I see franchising opportunities in the desert, people……

Dear Tweeps — I’m a convert. I have been tweeting since Christmas and, to be honest, never really understood why I was doing it. But yesterday? Wow. I was appearing on the Jeni Barnet show (listen here) and needed street food samples to taste. With only 24 hours to go, I sent out an SOS. Eat Street retweeted (get me with my twitter lingo) and Job Done. On the Sunday morning, outside Broadcasting House, I was met by a beautifully-wrapped chorizo and halloumi sandwich from Engine Food, ribs from the Rib Man, beef tacos from Toma Mexicano and steamed pork buns from Yum Bun. Every single dish was amazing. I was touched by the fact that each of the traders had made the effort………and so was Jeni. Love twitter. Love street food.

I was delighted when young Tom Hodgkinson invited me to come along to The Idler Academy on July 27 to talk about Street Food. You see, Tom knows all about the simple path to fulfillment. He is responsible for The Freedom Manifesto: How to Free Yourself from Anxiety and The Idler – the magazine devoted to the ethos of idle living. I admire his work. Besides, Tom and I share a past.

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